


A Terrible Reward

by chocochurros



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 05:25:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12698268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocochurros/pseuds/chocochurros
Summary: A rhyming rewrite of Eve Bunting's allegory of the Holocaust, The Terrible Things. Finished March 18th, 2017.





	A Terrible Reward

All of us, we stood in fear  
Watching glinting eyes appear  
Out of the darkness, eyeing them;  
My winged friends, bird women and men.

They asked for them, demanding harshly.  
The squirrels and creatures in the marsh - the  
Fish and frogs - the porcupines  
And the rabbit friends of mine   
Pretended not to hear their cries  
As the birds were taken by the Terrible Things with glinting eyes.

I don’t know why the birds were taken,  
But the terrible thirst still seemed unslaken,  
For as I pondered where they’d gone,  
The Terrible Things returned upon  
A cloud of the stench that they always carried  
Always preceding, warning and making us wary.

They came back for the bushy-tailed:  
The squirrels’ attempts miserably failed.  
There was no way that they could hope to escape  
The nets of the Terrible hairless apes.

I began, now, to notice changes  
I missed their chatter in the branches  
Taken, I should not have let my neighbors be,  
But at least they hadn’t taken me.

They soon returned for my friends, the fish -   
The frogs as well. I’d learn to wish  
For their croaking, playing in the pond.  
Which I’d never before considered a song.

The woods seemed now to be strangely quiet  
Only the porcupines bore with us the cold, lonely nights.

I found it hard to go to sleep  
Trying to answer my questions deep  
Who would the Terrible Things come for next?  
Would WE go extinct? Silently, I did reflect.  
I didn’t question Them about my friends of the past.  
They had always been faulted, anyway; I decided not to ask.

When they came to take the porcupines away,  
I knew that we’d finally be the next to pay.  
I tried to warn my fam’ly and friends;  
This was not how I wanted it to end.  
No one would listen, so I went off alone  
To hide among the stream’s smooth stones.

I smelled the stench and saw the shadows,  
But they didn’t see me, lying low.  
When I emerged after long, long last,  
The Terror had passed, but so everything that had dwelled in the grass.  
I looked, but as far as I could see,  
Everything was stripped clean, every pond and every single tree.

 

In the wake, the silent, desolate forest  
Was barren and empty, missing the chorus  
Of life that had once filled its pulsing heart.  
Now it was devoid of all energy, nothing new to start.

Shaking with both fear and grief,  
I ran off as fast as I could to reach  
The faraway Lakeside’s grove of beech,  
Of my sad tale to warn and teach.

We’d made mistakes, thinking we’d be protected.  
But we didn’t bother subjecting the system to correction.  
We left it to fester from neglect,  
So it selected and collected specimens that it could choose to affect.

We’d thrown everyone else beneath the bus,  
And yet, when it came our turn, we expected someone to scream for us.

I looked back at my home - dark, stark, deathly still;  
There was not a sign of life left.  
Not a porcupine quill.


End file.
